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Weaning off of prednisone & pain management

Posted by joan7 @joan7, Feb 25 9:11am

Last Tuesday, I went down from 7.5 mg of Prednisone down to 5 mgs. For the past 4 days my pain level has been a 12 out of 10. I could barely walk. Although I hate to take Advil, Motrin, etc., I took 2 Advil Gels and within 1 hour I felt better (not perfect, but a lot better). Hours later the pain started to come back but was maybe a 6 out of 10. The next morning I was crippled by the pain all over again. I forced myself to get moving, but could barely get around. Drank a lot of ice water, and before I went to bed, I raised the head part of my bed up and fell asleep. Woke up this morning with very little pain. Has anyone experienced any type of correlation between raising your head up vs laying flat, and the amount of pain you will experience? Had that slight change made that much of a difference in your pain level? I have found that drinking almost all my drinks with a lot of ice, definitely helps with internal inflammation. What are your experiences or thoughts regarding this matter? Thanks!

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DadCue | @dadcue | Oct 24 1:32pm
In reply to @lowell77 "Tapering down from 25 mg prednisone for my PMR over several months. At 10 mgs, started..." + (show)
@lowell77

Tapering down from 25 mg prednisone for my PMR over several months. At 10 mgs, started down by 1 mg per month. Finally got down to 5, taking 3 in the morning and 2 at night, the kind of timing which works best for me. When I dropped to 4, however, a slow flare-up started, so now back to 5. Rheum and I agree to now drop by 1/2 mg per month and see if that works. Tapering is tricky.

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Tapering off Prednisone is very tricky. It also becomes difficult to separate out the medical conditions that are being treated. The longer I took Prednisone, my rheumatology visits were more and more like being on long term prednisone was the primary medical condition being treated.

My medical problems always listed "long term current use of steroids at the top of the list. I "acquired" some additional medical problems while I was on Prednisone. At the bottom of my medical problem list was the "history of" reactive arthritis and uveitis along with PMR. None of those conditions were treated like the primary problem. Being on prednisone and being "unable to taper off prednisone" became my primary medical problem

REPLY
art43 | @art43 | Oct 25 10:23am
In reply to @lowell77 "Tapering down from 25 mg prednisone for my PMR over several months. At 10 mgs, started..." + (show)
@lowell77

Tapering down from 25 mg prednisone for my PMR over several months. At 10 mgs, started down by 1 mg per month. Finally got down to 5, taking 3 in the morning and 2 at night, the kind of timing which works best for me. When I dropped to 4, however, a slow flare-up started, so now back to 5. Rheum and I agree to now drop by 1/2 mg per month and see if that works. Tapering is tricky.

Jump to this post

That is the same taper schedule I am on, now at 2.5 continuing downward at 0.5 per month. Have not been splitting the dose, however. Working just fine.
Good luck.

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